It was Basilica’s fourth season of bringing unique and exceptional films to the region through Basilica Screenings. The season emphasized expansive documentary practices, with selections from Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York, 1968-1986, formerly presented at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and hosting guest programmer Jake Perlin and filmmaker Charles Hobson. Additional highlights included screenings with filmmakers Kevin Jerome Everson and Wu Tsang in person, and a program co-presented with the HQTBD art collective that featured Peggy Ahwesh, Ephraim Asili and Takeshi Murata. And, the launch of our Sci-Fi Summer Nights Series included the community success Blade Runner Noodle Night! Our big annual events also featured crossover cinematic programming; 24-HOUR DRONE screened an all-female video program from the collection of Second Ward Foundation along with Bill Stone’s Pensato Clock. At Basilica SoundScape, Kiln Films presented Direct-to-Video, a program of films dedicated to eliciting dialogue between artists and challenge spectatorship, which was joined by Chris Bower’s We Won’t Bow Down along with several other Friday screenings in the North Hall.

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Never did we dream that such a charismatic rule breaker as Alex Cox would appear at Basilica the same month as the “Pope of Trash” pioneer John Waters, to take our film programming to the next level! The Basilica film dream team was joined throughout our season by artists far, near, and in our own backyard: feminist icon Barbara Hammer, acute documentarian Salomé Lamas and acclaimed film and television director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Forging connections between film, music and art, Basilica SoundScape included projections by Zia Anger, Maxwell Paparella, Nathan Corbin and Stephen G. Rhodes as part of the Kiln Films series. We also hosted a late night screening of Dead Poets Society in honor of the late Robin Williams, with an introduction by our friends from down the river, Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, and co-presented by Secret Cinema, an organization which presents large-scale cultural experiences in abandoned spaces.

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